Tech News Today for December 21, 2016
Tech News for Wednesday December 21, 2016
The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, known by many as the Snooper’s Charter, passed into law last month, which would allow for unprecedented collection and storage of emails, text messages and internet data on all citizens. But the EU’s highest court just ruled that indescriminate collection of those emails is illegal. Collection resulting from serious crimes like terrorism would still be justified, according to the decision. Challenges to the law are expected as a result of the ruling. Read more at TheGuardian.com.
Meanwhile, stateside, a new US House judiciary report says weakening encyrption with backdoors would be against the national interest. This comes in the year-end report from the House Judiciary's Encryption Working Group, released today. The group also says the issue of encryption forcing criminals to "go dark” has been overblown. Instead its more like "going spotty." Many are seeing this as a victory for Apple in their fight with the FBI that began back in February of this year. Read more at TheVerge.com.
The revolving door at Twitter continues to… revolve. CTO Adam Messinger joins the ever growing list of executives to leave the company this year. VP of Product Josh McFarland also announced his departure as he’s joining venture capital firm Greylock Partners. As of now, seven of the ten executives listed on Twitter’s leadership team site this year have departed, and that’s not counting other VP-level executives who also left in 2016. Read more at TechCrunch.com.
TechCrunch says Uber is on course to lose nearly 3 billion dollars in 2016, despite explosive revenue growth and the sale of its Chinese market. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise to followers of companies the size of Uber. The ride-hailing service has not gone public yet and with a 68 billion dollar valuation, it's currently the world’s most valuable private company. Sources familiar with the matter also say that rival Lyft spends more than 50 percent more per ride than Uber, by offering riders bigger discounts and incentives for drivers. Read more at TechCrunch.com.
The White House released a seemingly conflicted report about artificial intelligence. Conflicted because on one hand, the report concludes that millions of jobs occupied by lower-skilled workers will be replaced by AI leading to a widening divide in socioeconomic classes. On the other hand, AI will ultimately lead to a better economy with more efficient production of goods, higher average wages and fewer hours for workers. Overall, the report says that more artificial intelligence is need to improve and grow the economy. Read more at washingtonpost.com.
Megan Morrone and Jason Howell are joined today by Geoff Fowler of the Wall Street Journal to talk about how AirPods compare to other wireless earbuds on the market. Tech News Today streams live weekdays at 4PM Pacific, 7PM Eastern at twit.tv/live. Subscribe to the show and watch it on-demand at twit.tv/tnt.